Our Karunamoyee-Salt lake Housing

Karunamoyee Housing in Salt Lake City-Kolkata is the best place in the earth for me. From 1982 to 2001 i spend my 19 years of life here before started leaving abroad and this is the place where i want to spend the final years of my life if i have any control over that:).My parents still live here, so does my numerous good friends, neighbors and loved ones.when we moved here in 1982 it was the time when salt lake just started taking it's shape, S-14 and S-16 were the only way out to mainland kolkata and today's IT HUB,  was a nonentity. CA market was the only place to do groceries and we were used to hear "SIYALER DAK" every night beside our building which was a jungle in the abandoned CMDA ground. G block ,E block and K block was under construction and we use to play hide and seek on those buildings. My first group of friends were from my building;Papa, santai and then Bororaja, Manu, Malsa-raja,tutun and later souvik. papa and souvik still lives in the same building F35, Raja moved to E block later. our other nice friends were choity( anindita), debi, rimma all from F block and we had bicycle ride together in the bikelbela, salt lake was very quite and less crowded and those bike rides were real fun. we occassionally get off from the bikes to eat phuchka or bhelpuri together.From the 80s the momorable incident from karunamoyee that i remember was, Mr. P Mullick aka Mullickkaku the sportslover, energetic and quite weird person stood in Bidhansabha election under " New SUN" banner as a neutral candidate and covered whole karunamoyee with his posters, slogans , demands and promises for karunamoyee, 100% selfless demands and totally devoted for progress and advancement of sports and unity for our housing.Then i also remember the world cuppers from argentina, poland, uruguay came to play in the Nehru Gold cup for the inauguration of The Salt Lake stadium/Yubabharati in 1984 i guess.1986 was a memorable one as our favorite snack corner of "Dhirenda" started in the karunamoyee bus stop which was the best place for muttonroll, chicken roll, fish fry and Moglai porota for us. 201,46A started in 1984,CK market opened in 1983,Tapanda started his vendor of milk, bread and eggs beside F block in that same early time. The Municipality park infront of my building was an abandoned ground with trees, CMDA pipes, garbage and total jungle, so we choose to play in FE park. The municipality ground inaugurated with the patronage of Salt Lake municipality chairman Late Mr. Dilip Gupta in 1994 and it was a great thing that he did for the whole housing.we now have the famous " Swaraj Sangha" which organizes lots of good events and activities for the whole locality.Our next batch of juniors likw  Fuli, tuhin, Kaushik,satya, tatai, buku, sumit are carrying our flags high up now.Then the 90s spend with lots and lots and lots of fun and then i left for USA in 2001. It is impossible to summarize in a blog of all the moments but i will pick up my few best memories from my grey matter:

1.Durgapujo = This was a super duper event for all of us.chanda tola with bujai,baban,bumbada, tony,Paiku,kaushikda( galda), bumba,rittik; pandel  work by Robinda, Prabirkaku and Nagkaku busy with decorators, bazar in kole market, kalyani dida as usual cooking bhog, Guharoy kaku helping for anjali preparation and our beloved  friend kaushik overall supervising and working very very hard every year.ma, kakima ra doing sandhipujo during navami night, then our anjali and khichuri serving to the whole F block during astami dupur, orchestra on nabami night and our unsynchronized dance lead by dodo and cola with the bollywood hits then conclude with our long procession of "vasan".During one of the durgapujo i had  my first cigarette, first sip in beer and my first crush on a sweet girl who use to live few blocks away from my home.Those were some sweet memories that still makes me nostalgic.

2. Holi= This comes as the 2nd best in my list. from morning we were busy buying the abir, filling the baloons with rong, choosing the right texture of the other colors and then gather under bujai or bapis house.Then our gang of 10-12 members all invaded in other theks and mohallas for a fake color fight, then walking throught the long roads of G and C block chorusing famous Holi hits like" Ranga bharose bhige chunarwali" or " Holi hai", played football , Gogol of G block stand out to be the winner of the most dangerous color in hand, Tearing Gaiti's shirt with jor jabardasti, teasing fight between babai-bapi hore and samrat over each other's dad ,jelebi-singara or ice creme treat by our employed dadas( like debasishda, binayakda or Pikluda) ,countering over ganja-kolke few times( good collection by someone always)and then tear each others shirt as a fun also.Evening dinner together at China town or cooking Kasha mangsho at dodo-banti's house or tanmoy's rooftop  with Bhang-siddhi was great as well.

3.15th August football tournament = This was another big affair of our para, " Pijush Smriti Shield"( named after bubai da's father) was the most coveted trophy for all football lovers in our para,preparation starts months before, Dhruba-da, Iman and palash (the jibon-poltu-gaju bose of our para:)) for stealing players and signing for own team, the barometer rises to it's peak on the D-day, lots of good and poor quality football, maramari, bawali, gondogol was a regular incident. I use to play in right back and later to midfield position and won this shield 2-3 times, first one in 1993 with our F block team. Lost the last 2000 final in tie breaker. Anshuman, Bapi,abhijitda,samsul's power as stopper,bappa, tiru, Rana and jayanta's brillience in midfield and bujai, kerry, ashoke as forward's are still vivid in my mind.The best one in the pack was Tirtho da of FE block, he is the best i've seen in our football ground.Among junior players Piklu, tatai, sumit, shadrul was very god as well.Winner team with the procession and midnight celebration and loosing teams taking oath to gear up for next year.I still miss this from the bottom of my heart, since 2001 i  never got a chance to go to india during august and play in this again.

4.sunday adda+ cricket at FE park= during winter months our jomati adda with masala gossips on endless topics from new girl in locality, to tumul bawali over ganguly-dravid or Mohunbagan-east bengal( me, abbas-bumba, poga bubun , babai and pitke were the die hard sobuj-merun fans and rest all east bengal) with endless request for counters of charminar or gold flake was the golden touch. Often in these adda's khilli with each others baba's nickname held with top priority. But all those were innocuous fun didn't meant to hurt or insult anyone. Our frind bantul-aka monipuri aka Madhuri use to smoke a cigarette that  emit endless fumes like jute mill chimneys and we call it" Kochhop chap" which i still promptly remember.I miss those addas as well. No tension of future, no serious talks ;just masti n masti.In cricket we use to play underarm, one hand one bounce version which was very popular to finish 2-3 games on a sunday noon. we used tennis ball provided by our friend vonta-bubun usually.Juniors like Inzy(samrat),Amit Jha, Akash sony,Birju, swarup, tutul, Poira use to join us as well.

5.Bus stand=karunamoyee bus stand was a melting pot of all food, gossip, culture, people, everything. we had eternal Dhirenda's roll corner, later Bapi started the famous momo joint, we had suruchi with their rumali roti and " tasty but bhejal tele banalo torka", jai jawan with pork friend rice and chili chicken, the famous jali phoochkawala kaku, sambhudas telebhaja-jilipi store and all the pan-biri-cigartte shops which we( esp Kutti, G block bumba) always avoid  to pay back the emormous amount of "Udhars"":)


6.Finally for  those who left us = First name comes in my mind was kaushik( chingri), on 2005 durga pujo after vasan he left us with a sudden cardiac arrest, he was our very close friend, this is such a kind of grief in our mind which has no consolation and will stay with us for ever. Munai da of B block died on a motorbike accident in late 90s, Mullickkaku died last year on 2011 the sportslover and one of the rarest soul who tried to do something for the community without any intention of personal growth and then this year 2 months ago our friend Raja of G block left us for ever on new years eve.so i do have agonizing mmoments apart from my ecstasy about karunamoyee. It's very much true that Life is not fair, atleast to some people.

i try to go back every year to my parents and spend a wonderful time in karunamoyee with my good friends, neighbors and my respected seniors.Things i always do as ritual whenever i go back to visit my place = i go to FE park on sunday noon to give adda with my old friends(most of them are unfortunately out of kolkata or India for career n life), i meet my quiz partner deep of K block and attend our kolkata quiz community sessions again like old time, i visit kallolda's home always to meet his two adorable kids, his son dodo and daughter dinku who loves to share their all school stories and projects with their favorite " ayan kaka", i try to bring out time to still play a game of football or cricket with the juniors at FE/karunamoyee ground, i still go and knock Bapi hore's flat and give a surprise visit and crack some jokes about his  dad  in the middle of our conversation just like old time and he does the same to me:) and i must give a  shot of few momo's from bapi's stall and sambhuda's telebhaja and they are any gastronomers delight. I miss this place always and always it will stay close to my heart for ever. My wife piu loves this place and when my  little son grow up to understand i will tell him all the stories of this beautiful place and take him there as soon as possible.Posting few pics, hope my readers will like them.